numinousreligion

• concept of the sacred sacred

  ...Heilige (Eng. trans., The Idea of the Holy, 1923) appeared and exercised a great influence on the study of religion through its description of religious man’s experience of the “numinous” (a mysterious, majestic presence inspiring dread and fascination), which Otto, a German theologian and historian of religions, claimed, could not be derived from anything other than...

• significance in mysticism mysticism

  ...with an ethical aura or undertone. This is how most people understand it. But this lowers its potency considerably. There is clearly an overplus, below good and evil and beyond good and evil....

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• concept of the Holy religion, study of

  ...side of his enterprise, however, was the excellent delineation of a central experience and sentiment and the elucidation of the concept of the Holy. The central experience Otto refers to is the numinous (Latin numen, “spirit”) in which the Other (i.e., the transcendent) appears as a mysterium tremendum et fascinans—that is, a mystery before which man...

• Otto’s philosophy Otto, Rudolf

  Otto called this object “the numinous” or “Wholly Other”—i.e., that which utterly transcends the mundane sphere, roughly equivalent to “supernatural” and “transcendent” in traditional usage.

• study of religious experience religion, philosophy of

  ...was written by the modern German Protestant theologian Rudolf Otto. In his Idea of the Holy, Otto analyzed what is distinctively religious in terms of the unique concept of the “numinous”; i.e., something both awesome and appealing, both fearful and attractive.

• Christian doctrine and dogma Christianity

  ...the “numinous” (the spiritual dimension), the utterly ineffable, the holy, and the overwhelming. The “holy” is manifested in a double form: as the mysterium tremendum (“mystery that repels”), in which the dreadful, fearful, and overwhelming aspect of the numinous appears, and as the mysterium...

• numinous concept religion, study of

  ...of the concept of the Holy. The central experience Otto refers to is the numinous (Latin numen, “spirit”) in which the Other (i.e., the transcendent) appears as a mysterium tremendum et fascinans—that is, a mystery before which man both trembles and is fascinated, is both repelled and attracted. Thus, God can appear both as wrathful or awe inspiring,...

• Otto’s interpretation Otto, Rudolf

  ...elemental experience of apprehending the numinous itself. In such moments of apprehension, said Otto,

  we are dealing with something for which there is only one appropriate expression, mysterium tremendum. . . . The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting...

• religious experience mysticism

  ...to be too true to be denied or ignored. Awe may or may not be the best part of man, but without it a necessary dimension is left out of the image of man, the dimension of what Otto called the mysterium tremendum et fascinans (“the mystery that repels and attracts”). The mystics are loath to leave this dimension out and, directly or indirectly, insist on its inclusion....

• study of sacredness sacred

  Not only is there an ambivalence in the individual’s reaction to the numinous quality of the sacred but the restrictions, the tabus, can be expressive of the creative power of the sacred. Caillois has described at length the social mechanism of nonliterate societies, in which the group is divided into two complementary subgroups (moieties), and has interpreted the tabus and the necessary...

• canonization procedure saint

  ...strictly to a holy person or numinous personality worthy of veneration. In the 10th century a procedure of canonization (official recognition of a public cult of a saint) was initiated by Pope John XV. Gradually, a fixed process was developed for canonization by the pope, requiring that the person must have led a life of heroic sanctity and performed at least two miracles.